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Archive for the ‘Cooking Through The Decades’ Category

Jump ahead twelve years from the last Cooking Through the Decades project to 1917. I really don’t know much about 1917 except that it was the year the United States entered World War I.

Apparently Chicken a la King had been around for some time in the year 1917. The great people at America’s Test Kitchen spruced up the recipe for today’s cooks. And, because it’s what I do, I’ll make their recipe gluten-free.

Since they suggest serving this creamy chicken concoction over toasted supermarket Italian bread, my first step in making this dish gluten-free was to bake up a loaf of bread. You could also serve this over mashed potatoes, rice, or noodles. For a low-carb version, I would make up some cauli-rice or faux-tatoes… perhaps even serve with toasted almond bread. The recipe itself only contains 3 Tablespoons of flour, so this makes it pretty easy to make into a gluten-free or low-carb dish. In order to stick to the recipe as closely as possible, I decided to save de-carbing the dish for another time.

I had to watch over this bread closely as it cooled… Both of my kids were eyeing it like they hadn’t eaten in weeks! It didn’t help that the whole house smelled like fresh-baked bread.

Back to Chicken a la King – As a first step, the chicken is marinated in heavy cream, lemon juice, and salt for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Prepping the veggies is next. Dice an onion, thinly slice mushrooms and red bell peppers. Bring oil to temperature in a large skillet and then cook the onion until golden. Add the red bell and mushrooms, some salt and pepper, and cook until the veggies have softened.

Once the veggies have softened, the recipe calls for 3 Tablespoons of flour. To make this gluten-free, I subbed the Better Batter flour for AP Flour. (To de-carb this recipe, almond flour might work here… I’ve had good results using almond flour as a thickener.)

Then, Madeira (or in my case Marsala) wine goes in the pan, followed by chicken stock and heavy cream. The sauce is allowed to thicken before adding the marinated chicken (along with its cream marinade). Once the chicken is cooked through, add some lemon juice and parsley and serve with toast.

Both kids liked this a lot. (And, so did I.) So, another successful Cooking Through The Decades recipe is completed. I wonder what the 1920’s will bring!

America’s Test Kitchen has a fun weekly project going on right now. Each week they plan to feature a recipe from the past for us to make. By sending in a picture, you have the opportunity to win a book and apron. I’m in…

The first recipe is from 1905 and it’s called Cold Oven Pound Cake. The recipe appeared in Cook’s Country February/March 2008.

My first step was to convert their recipe to Gluten-Free. It was easy enough as the main ingredient to worry about was flour. Thanks to Better Batter, that doesn’t even phase me anymore. I use 120 grams of the Better Batter flour for every cup called for in a regular recipe (unless of course the recipe writers are nice enough to give a weight measure in the first place). So far so good.

Here’s an overview of what I did (including my substitutions):

The recipe calls for a 16-Cup Tube Pan. Since it was 10:00 on a Sunday night and I didn’t already own a Tube-Pan, I decided to use my Bundt Pan. If I like the recipe enough maybe I’ll go buy a Tube Pan… but then again, if I like the recipe enough, maybe I’ll just keep making it the way I did this time. It’s too soon to tell. The pan is in the oven right now.

In my stand mixer, I combined 20 T of softened unsalted butter with 2 1/2 Cups of sugar and turned the mixer to medium until I had a nice fluffy mixture. Then I added 6 eggs, one at a time, letting them work their way into the mixture before adding the next one. Sadly… on the fourth egg, I accidentally dropped part of the egg shell. Don’t worry… I think I got most of the eggshell out of the batter. And, well… you don’t have to eat it, do you? Yes. I could have started over with 20 more Tablespoons of softened butter and another 2 1/2 Cups of Sugar, but I didn’t. It was already late, and I didn’t want to wait for the butter to soften again.

After digging out the partial egg shell, I reduced the mixer speed to low and added the flour in 3 additions, alternating with the milk mixture (beginning and ending with the flour).

Then I prepared my Bundt Pan by greasing with shortening and giving a light dusting of about a Tablespoon of Better Batter. I poured the mixture into the prepared pan and placed it in the oven.

This is the neat trick about this recipe. You don’t pre-heat the oven. You put the cake in the oven and THEN turn the oven to 325 degrees. The directions state to bake until golden brown… about 65 to 80 minutes!

Once I got the cake in the oven, I sat down to write out this post. That way, I would be ready to take a picture, add it, try the cake, and post!

Hang on… I need to go check my cake…

Cold Oven Pound Cake out of the oven

The rest of the directions tell me that I need to let this cake rest in the pan for 15 minutes and then cool for 2 hours. Honestly. I’m going to be asleep in 2 hours. So, I will finish up this post in the morning and let you know how it turned out. At the moment, the cake appears to have a beautiful crust and the toothpick came out clean when inserted… More to come in the morning!

Update: July 2, 2012

Well, it’s morning. I can now tell you about the Cold Oven Pound Cake. This is a very moist, buttery cake. The best part to me is the crisp exterior promised in the recipe.

Yum!

I’m really looking forward to finding out this week’s Cooking Through The Decades recipe!